Posts from the ‘Misc’ Category

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I’m a fan of unusual or paraticularly functional knives, six months ago I got my first Leatherman Wave, which is an awesome tool. I just recently purchased the brand new Iain Sinclair CardSharp Utility Knife, and so far I think it’s pretty good! Its credit card form factor makes it easy to carry around, and its sharp blade makes it useful in a variety of situations. The only criticism I have is that the card/handle is plastic and feels quite flimsy. I was expecting the whole card to be made of thin aluminium, or maybe something more grippy. I’m also worried the little plastic bit that keeps the blade in place whilst closed may potentially wear down eventually. That said, it’s still a unique product, and the blade is excellent, so I definitely recommend it.

I made a quick video review of it (actually one of my first videos). Apologies for the bad quality, I used an old external iSight; turns out their resolution sucks ;)

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The following chart represents a graph of MDZhB’s (formerly UVB-76) transmission times. This was done by taking time information of all known MDZhB transmissions from 11 September 2010, to 20 January 2011. There have been 80 transmissions in that 131-day timeframe, averaging out at about one transmission every other day. The transmission times were rounded to their nearest ten minutes to simplify the representation.

As you can see MDZhB, broadcasting on 4625 khz, has been transmitting the majority of its broadcasts between the times of 12:50 and 15:20 UTC. If you want to catch a live broadcast, your best chance is to listen within that 2.5-hour timeframe.

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I’ve always thought that terrorists must find some of the attempts to thwart attacks quite amusing, Nudiescanners and TSA groping included. I recently stumbled across this picture and thought “this is probably not far from the truth”.

Either way, I found it funny so thought I’d share.

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The following poll results very clearly show an irrefutable direct correlation between people who think that Wikileaks’ Julian Assange should be charged with espionnage, and those who think milk and meat products made from cloned animals are as safe as conventional food.

It is therefore possible to state that the more intelligent voters do not think Julian Assange should be charged with espionage. Science, it works bitches.

Voice your opinion on Wikileaks’ Cablegate by voting in the sidebar, or vote here.

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Those of us involved in security in any form will tend to have strong opinions about things like information control, political agendas, freedom of information, civil liberties, and the impact these may have on the world. I just wanted to get a feel for how the security community feels about Wikileaks Cablegate.

What's your opinion on Wikileaks' Cablegate?

I'm pro-disclosure. Wikileaks provides a valuable service (77%)

This information is too dangerous. Wikileaks were reckless to release it (19%)

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This post will be updated to cover news and activity of interest from UVB-76 (MDZhB/94ZhT). Latest/newest update at the top.

Latest Transmission: Thu, Nov 3 2011 @ 12:47 UTC (recording)

Buzzer Status: ON

For most of the recent recordings, follow this page (or this one). An archive of historical recordings is being developed here. Also check out priyom.org for lots more Numbers Station info.

Comments are welcome.

Mon, 12 Sep 2011 09:40:00 +0000

There appear to have been a few transmission in the past month with different callsigns. On September 8 2011, a year after UVB-76 changed its callsign to MDZhB, it transmitted a message using another new callsign: 94ZhT. It is unknown yet whether there is any significance to this change.

Summary: tune in between 12:50 and 15:20 UTC for the best chance to catch a broadcast.

Fri, 19 Nov 2010 20:05:04 +0000

Check out this page for a full list of UVB-76/MDZhB transmissions and their transcriptions.

Mon, 15 Nov 2010 15:21:30 +0000

On the 11th at exactly 1400 UTC, a series of conversations were broadcast between different people on the UVB-76 frequency. It is not yet known where this transmission originated from, although the buzzer can still be heard faintly in the background. Either someone made a mistake, or it’s an unrelated or pirate transmission over UVB-76’s frequency.

A full translation of these conversations is not yet available (feel free to post one), although they appear to be military in nature.

Mon, 08 Nov 2010 21:11:06 +0000

A few guys (Webweasel, Presentedin4D and danix111) from the UVB-76 IRC channel have started a podcast. Here is the first episode:

Fri, 05 Nov 2010 10:08:45 +0000

There have been a number of transmissions since my last post, in fact too many to summarize here. Buzzer has since stopped, however some counting/unknown beeps have been heard. The beeps are interesting as nothing of that kind has been heard so far.

There hasn’t been much to report on recently. Unfortunately the interest in UVB-76 has waned recently, as the mystery of its silence has died down. It’s believed that the frequency is now being used to transmit messages from another relay.

I’ll update this page when something significant happens. I encourage the readers who actively follow UVB-76 to continue posting updates in the comments (many people visit this page for updates).

For those who ever feel nostalgic about the summer of mystery, there’s always UVB-76 Forever!

Laid at the UVB-76 Internet Repeater has posted an update on recent events. Here’s one section of that post I think is important to note:

“It has been already disputed that UVB-76 may have changed to that callsign permanently […] As far as communication dispatches seem to be built up, the transmission site (and the frequency associated) is a separate entity from the party what actually airs the “content”. Therefore in any moment can someone decide that particular transmission site will now service another “content provider” and so will be. In that context, MDZhB is now simply using the same transmission unit as UVB-76.”

Thu, 30 Sep 2010 15:24:54 +0000

Based on some comments at the bottom of the page (thanks Jan), apparently there have been some reported transmissions. I haven’t yet been able to confirm these from a secondary source…

Buzzer is currently off.

Thu, 23 Sep 2010 20:12:00 +0000

There have been a few transmission in the past couple days. Unfortunately no recordings or transcriptions are currently available. Other than that the buzzer has been operating more or less ceaselessly.

This evening the buzzer stopped, and the carrier signal has also disappeared.

Another transmission yesterday. The transmissions from the so-called MDZhB appear quite frequent with 1-2 transmissions daily. What the connection is with the original UVB-76 – apart from the constant buzzer – is unknown. Perhaps the station has been re-purposed to broadcast these coded messages once a day.

For the enjoyment of everyone who has had the strange pleasure of following UVB-76, I’ve created this experimental track which puts together most of the interesting recent events from the station. Enjoy!

Towards the end it is possible to hear another voice talking in the background. Whether this is from the same transmission is unknown.

Other interesting transmissions, include voices that appear to be answering a phone, now leading to the speculation that UVB-76 is in some way connected to a telephone exchange. Possible if it’s a communications centre. More info on this theory in this post.

There was one other male voice transmission recently, but this is believed to be from pirates.

Fri, 10 Sep 2010 12:18:27 +0000

Feel free to drop by the live chat to discuss UVB-76. Not much happening at the moment as everyone is waiting for the buzz to return. The updates on this page contain all the info that is currently available.

Fri, 10 Sep 2010 08:51:29 +0000

The buzzer has stopped again since yesterday.

Wed, 08 Sep 2010 17:35:56 +0000

After the better part of another day with no activity – there’s been plenty. First a weak buzzer returned, shortly followed by the appearance of a strong carrier signal. After that it seems like they turned on the power because both the buzzer and subsequent voice transmissions have been extremely loud and clear.

The buzzer stopped briefly twice. Once for a male voice doing a test run of counting, and the second time for a female voice making a full voice transmission. The transmission transcodes to:

82 366 prutjnoi 63 85 99 71

This transmission did not use the callsign UVB-76, but instead “MDZhB” (Rus. МДЖБ), although the transmission was very clearly on 4.625 kHz. The transmissions appear to be genuine from UVB-76/MDZhB.

Apart from one unverified audio transmission, there has been little-to-no activity today.

Still no buzzer.

Tue, 07 Sep 2010 01:17:47 +0000

As this page was auto-refreshing, it was causing the flash players to reload constantly. I’ve now disabled the auto-updating. This means you’ll have to refresh this page manually to see any new posts.

Tue, 07 Sep 2010 00:52:57 +0000

Some interesting activity over the past few days, some legitimate, some not. Firstly, the UVB-76 temporary internet repeater kit has been upgraded, and it’s now possible to watch a live stream of the WinradHD screen (shows a visual waterfall output of the frequency). Someone is now also recording both the AM and USB feeds into a publicly-accessible archive. Worth checking out if you want a recording of something you heard.

In other news: It appears some pirates have been trying to broadcast over UVB-76’s frequency, and managed to make a message (“XYN”) appear in the waterfall view of the stream (screenshot below – click to enlarge):

Apparently those three letters mean “dick” in Russian. Admittedly this is a cool prank to pull off, however it does detract from everyone’s efforts of following UVB-76. There has also been some “counting” transmissions which were broadcast on UVB-76’s frequency, but may not be genuine.

Aside from that, The Buzzer has been silent. Laid (who runs the live stream) has found a new sine wave being transmitted right next to UVB-76’s frequency. There is currently speculation as to whether this may be related to The Buzzer in some way; possibly as an upgrade/replacement? Follow that discussion here.

As of this post there is still no buzzer.

Sun, 05 Sep 2010 20:58:12 +0000

Will post a full update of activities tomorrow. Stay tuned!

Fri, 03 Sep 2010 00:29:50 +0000

Just heard some more counting. But apart from that UVB-76 is silent again (no buzzer).

Thu, 02 Sep 2010 22:05:37 +0000

Plenty of activity this afternoon. The first piece of interest was a male voice in the background heard saying something along the lines of “these should work, but are very weak” (audio below).

UVB-76 then came back on air and continued the seemingly maintenance-related loop of buzzer-music-buzzer (same as yesterday).

This was interwoven with very clear morse (whether this is directly on UVB-76’s frequency is to be confirmed), and new voice transmissions of at least three people (two male, one female), counting from 1 to 10. Sound clips below.

The third one is most interesting as it’s very clear and contains buzzer, music, morse and counting.

As of this update, we’re still hearing the occasional loop of buzzer-music-buzzer. Just heard one more very distorted male voice counting.

Thu, 02 Sep 2010 09:51:08 +0000

Confirmed the morse code from yesterday was not actually on 4.625 MHz (UVB-76’s frequency), but on a neighbouring frequency used by Russian Navy.

UVB-76 itself is currently silent.

Thu, 02 Sep 2010 01:56:19 +0000

Summary of 1 September 2010:

UVB-76 carrier (buzzing) went off the air

A repeating morse code signal appeared (60 second loop)

Another deeper morse code could briefly be heard

UVB-76 buzzer returns together with a loop of swan lake music (extract below)

For the enjoyment of everyone who has had the strange pleasure of following UVB-76, I’ve created this experimental track which puts together most of the interesting recent events from the station. Enjoy!

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For those of you interested in following (or contributing to) the recent UVB-76 Russian radio station developments, go drop by the new discussion forums. They’re still quite empty at the time of this post, but most of the discussion that have been taking place on the blog will be moving there shortly.

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This may seem like a deviation from the normal topics I cover, but I’ve been quite intruigued by the recent news of an unusual broadcast from the Russian military UVB-76 numbers station. Numbers stations are radio broadcasts that transmit morse code, or computer-generated voices reading out a series of numbers or words. Their purpose is generally unknown but thought to be used to broadcast orders to military or spies. One rumor suggests it is involved in Russia’s Dead Hand (aka. Perimeter).

UVB-76, located in Povarovo, Russia (northwest of Moscow), is a shortwave radio transmission (4625 kHz – AM suppressed lower sideband) that has been transmitting short monotonous buzz tones since 1982. Voice messages from UVB-76 – also known as “The Buzzer” – have only occurred three confirmed times in the past 20 years, the last known instance being the 23rd of August 2010 (recording below). During this broadcast the buzz tones stopped, and were replaced by the Russian-language broadcast which translates to:

There is also belief that the installation is simply used for ionosphere research, as a Russian science journal indicated research being performed on the same frequency. Although this wouldn’t explain the cryptic messages.

Live streams of UVB-76 are available here (AM feed, USB feed). Photos of the purported installation here. Some more archived info here.

Anyone have any other ideas? Conspiracy theories? In all likelihood, it may be nothing propulsed into the mainstream. It wouldn’t be the first time.